(I'm not trying very hard on these collages, am I.)
Dear diary,
"Somebody owns me." That's what you could say, if you were a slave. "I rent myself out, at an hourly rate." That's what you could say if you punched a time-clock.
"I sell my paintings for tens of dollars." That's what you could say if found a buyer; but soon your expenses would outweigh your income, and it wouldn't even matter if you were able to sell your paintings for millions of dollars: for if your paycheck were millions, your debt would be billions; and if your income were billions, your debt would be trillions — and so on.
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. (Isaiah 1:11)
I wonder what art school is for, since art is basically a synonym for anti-school. Same with the prophets: they're basically anti-religion, howbeit they're canonized. But the priests are smart; they're like the C.I.A. of the church. They see that if they admit that the prophets are against them, then everyone'll heed the words of the prophets; so the priests simply say "Yeah, look: the harsh criticisms that the prophets leveled against us are included in our holy book; therefore go to sleep, and keep paying your tithe to us (preferably trillions): for why would we priests have enshrined these prophets, our adversaries, as part of our scriptures, if what the prophets said was against our religion? No, they're obviously speaking ironically." (Priests will say anything. Unlike modern politicians.)
But the problem with my argument here is that some of the prophets were indeed pro-priesthood, and some were even priests themselves, for instance Ezekiel. But that's cuz prophets, like artists, are not bound by rules; and since school and church are basically zones of law enforcement, I say that a priest or schoolteacher who dares prophesy is at cross purposes with her own institution, tho perhaps unwittingly.
In other words: True freedom may relinquish itself. And the truest freedom yearns for enslavement. That's why the wealthiest among us continue to stockpile their riches, rather than righting the system that fluked them blessingward: they're practically begging the world to redistribute their fortune.
Yes, I like best the prophets who are anti-establishment, like Amos, the herdman and fruit-gatherer. Far from siding with the priests, he actually denies even being of the school of the prophets!
I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit. (Amos 7:14)
That's the type of rebel that I like. In today's terms, it'd be some working-class fool who never attended college but who learns about all subjects on her own. An autodidact. Of course I love these types of people because one always loves one's own type best; right, Jesus?
P.S.
I'm consciously trying to keep these blog posts shorter, with the ultimate goal of causing them to end before they begin; that's why the above entry is so... What's the word I'm looking for.
2 comments:
Succint. Very well done in my opinion. We know my opinion means very little. After reading the words, the collage seems very apt. When I first looked at it I was thinking of gluttony and avarice. Stop before the comment is longer than the blog..
RE "my opinion means very little": NO! not here. Every opinion means the world to me: so I'm destroyed by an insult, and I'm saved by a compliment: therefore you are my savior; & for this, I thank you!
Also I'm glad that you mention the collage. My habit is to write these diary entries in the small hours of the night, and then when my sweetheart awakes, we read over what I wrote — she reads my words back to me aloud. Yesterday when I posted this image-and-text, after we finished reading it, I didn't even mention the thots or the words: I spoke for a long time about how I was embarrassed that the PIC might be seen as too low, too lazy; because it IS low & lazy; but it's purposely so — and I said that it's Duchamp's idea of the "readymade", or the "assisted readymade" (basically a found object with a small manipulation), that inspires my attitude: I mean that I'm trying to break free of both good AND bad taste, so as to arrive at a dimension of indifference. Clipping the pictures haphazardly (lazily, lowly) and arranging them in a form so mundane as a rough square, I'm adding almost nothing that wasn't present in the original ads where all these fragments had their birth. They were scattered in the beginning; I just rounded them up & made them vaguely oblong. The result neither pleases me nor offends me. I like it like that. So my point is: I was hoping viewers wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that I either TRIED (and thus failed) to make a pretty picture, or that I did the opposite and strove to summon up ugliness; for neither is the truth: instead I was hoping that my "taste-neutral" image would lure each reader to dream into the image whatever meaning is available there. And that is what you did. (At least that's MY take on what you did.) So you blessed me double. Thank you, thank you! Amen and amen.
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